1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to sorting and tracking the movement of packages as they are transported both internally within an organization, and as they are shipped externally by a carrier on behalf of the organization. The invention also relates to providing notifications to interested parties as to the status of packages during transport.
2. Description of the Related Art
Within an organization, there is typically a significant amount of internal mail transferred between different office locations. Many organizations have a mailroom at each office location or business center, that acts as the central receiving point for mail, parcels, and other such items. These items will broadly be referred to as either ‘mail’ or ‘packages.’ The mail or packages are either received from workers within the office location to be sent out from such location (i.e., “outbound packages”), or can be received from an external carrier or other source for distribution to workers at the office location served by the mailroom (i.e., “inbound packages”). Many enterprises include a number of locations which are geographically remote from one another. In such organizations, it is commonplace for packages to be internally routed between workers within the same organization, but who are located at respective office locations that are geographically remote from one another.
Accordingly, such packages are effectively sent internally within the organization, although the services of an external carrier such as UPS®, Inc. may be used to transport the packages between locations. Some organizations have their own internal mail service to route mail or packages between different office locations, although this is relatively uncommon, particularly in cases in which the packages are shipped between offices that are geographically remote. In many enterprises, for local mail and packages, internal mail is sent using generic envelopes with handwritten “Send To” information. As a cost effective way of transferring mail between different organizational locations, some organizations ship packages destined for a common location in bulk via the services of an external carrier, such as UPS®, Inc.
A problem with these and other such internal mail systems is that they provide little or no “visibility” (i.e., tracking data) as to where an individual package is, or has been, during transport. This lack of visibility forces employees to choose between sending their package via the more economical internal mail system, which provides no information regarding a package's status, and sending the package by some other means, such as an external carrier, which can at least provide tracking data on the package as it travels from one location to another. As a result, employees often rely on overnight mail service to send their important internal documents. Unfortunately, this can be a relatively expensive solution in comparison to using the internal mail system, and it still does not provide the “desk-to-desk” visibility that would help avoid packages being lost or misplaced internally. It also provides limited or no ability for interested persons to be able to determine the status of a package, which may be desirable for various reasons. For example, the ability to determine that status of a package during transportation may be important to providing the ability to plan work schedules that are dependent upon arrival of the contents of the package or mail.
Such visibility may also provide an “audit trail” for establishing the whereabouts of a package during shipment. This may be important to determining where a package that has been delayed or lost is in the shipment process, which may be particularly important if the package contents are time-sensitive or subject to spoilage. The ability to track the mail or package can also be important from the standpoint of verifying that the package was in fact sent, which may be important in legal contexts such as for the purposes of providing notification of legal rights, or acceptance of or performance under a contract, for example. In addition, the ability to track a package or mail item provides a degree of oversight and accountability for those involved in the package or mail shipping process, because, in the event a package is lost, tracking ability provides insight into possible system or human errors leading to loss of the package. For at least these reasons, it would be desirable in many contexts to provide the ability to better track packages sent between office locations of an organization.
A solution is therefore needed to provide improved sorting and tracking capabilities for mail items that are processed by an internal mail system, even when an aspect of the internal mail system includes shipping such packages in bulk via an external carrier.